Growing Pains
by BelloftheSea
Summary: So much can change in an instant. And with change comes pain, fear, helplessness, hope, strength, joy… a second chance. Through these we learn to grow.
1. Chapter 1

**Growing Pains**

_So much can change in an instant. And with change comes pain, fear, helplessness, hope, strength, joy… a second chance. Through these we learn to grow._

* * *

**AN. **This serves as a background story for my GP-turtles, who made their first appearance in the Stealthy Stories chat rooms. It is not necessary for you to be familiar with their lives there in order to understand this story.

**Disclaimer:** The Turtles and all their friends are the property of Mirage Studios. I do not own them, but am grateful for the opportunity to use them in the unleashing of my own imagination.

**Rating:** This story is rated K+

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Three days. He had spent three days as Agent Bishop's prisoner. How he'd escaped in one piece was still a matter that was baffling him.

Leonardo settled himself down at the table with a cup of tea. Master Splinter had gone into his room to meditate. Across from him, his brothers sat… staring. Less then two hours ago, they'd helped him to escape from Bishop's clutches and now they just kept looking at him as though they expected him to suddenly turn into a monster or something. He supposed this was a logical assumption considering that, only a few months ago, Donatello had been turned into a monster, thanks to Bishop's mutagen. Still, he felt completely fine.

Yes, there was the small matter of whatever it was he'd been injected with. Leo eyed the puncture wound in his arm. He'd been bound to a table at the time and was unable to prevent the scientists from drawing blood and putting… something into him. No one had answered his questions when he asked about what they were doing either.

But… nothing felt wrong; he wasn't sick or in pain… he was fine.

And their stares were getting annoying.

"Alright." he set his cup down hard, sloshing a little tea on the table. "You can stop looking at me like I'm about to explode. I'm fine!"

His brothers immediately averted their eyes and Leo picked up his tea again. However, the peace of not being scrutinized only lasted a minute. He soon felt their gazes return to him. Sighing he returned the cup to the table, gently this time.

"Guys, come on. I've had people watching me like a mouse in a maze for the past three days. I don't need more from you."

Michelangelo grinned sheepishly. "Dude, can you really blame us? We were worried about you."

"Heh, speak for yourself Mikey. I was enjoying the peace and quiet around here." Raphael turned away, acting like he could care less about the welfare of his older brother. And while his words were all but cruel, his subtle glances back at Leo bespoke of his true concern.

Leo shook off Raph's words for what they truly were: a facade. After all, Raph had an image to maintain. He looked instead at Donatello, who would certainly be the next to speak.

A few moments of silence past before, "I'd really like to take some blood tests, Leo, just to be sure."

Leo just shook his head and stood up, finishing his tea. "Don, I promise if I start feeling even slightly off I'll come straight to you. For now, all I want to do is sleep in a real bed again."

As if on cue, he felt his right leg twinge. His automatic response was to reach down and rub the spot, a thing which his brothers were quick to notice.

"What's wrong?!" three alarmed voices said at once.

Sighing, he placed his cup in the sink and looked back at them. "It's nothing, just a cramp. I probably just pulled something during our escape." Even as he said the words, the pain intensified and for some reason, his other leg began feeling it as well.

He ignored it and started heading towards his room, telling himself that this was nothing to be alarmed about.

Just outside of the subway car that served as an entrance foyer and hallway, it hit him. He couldn't hold back a cry of pain as the feeling swept throughout his body and sent him to his knees.

Within seconds, his brothers were by his side. Don looked at him, his eyes full of concern, and asked, "Now, will you let me run a blood test?"

* * *

Don looked closely at his brother's blood in the test tube. There was nothing wrong that he could see with the naked eye. He'd have to look at a sample under his microscope before he could even begin to figure out what was wrong.

But first things first.

Leo was lying on the bed in his lab, which also served as an infirmary whenever they needed it. It was obvious, just by looking at him, that the blue-masked turtle was in a lot of pain. He hadn't cried out since that initial time, but his hands were clenched tightly to the sheets and he kept biting his lip.

"Leo, I need you to answer a few questions." Don sat down beside him as he nodded just slightly. "Alright, where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere…" his voice was strained.

"Well, is there anywhere that it hurts more then others?"

"No, it's all the same. And it's all over."

Glancing over, Don saw Raph, Mike, and Master Splinter gathered in the doorway. Their sensei had come immediately when he heard what was happening. Out of the three standing there, he was the only one who didn't seem on the verge of panicking.

Turning back to Leo, he continued his questioning. "Where did the pain start?"

"In my legs."

"Can you describe the pain?" Leo just looked at him, unsure. "Is it burning… stinging…?"

The blue-masked turtle shook his head. "No… no it's like… It's more like…" he seemed to fish for the right word. "Growing pains," he said finally.

"Growing pains? What, like, what we got when we were kids?" Everyone seemed confused now. They all remembered those awful pains in their legs that happened occasionally and often kept them up through the night. But it had been years since they'd had to deal with them.

Leonardo nodded. "Yeah… only worse, a lot worse. And it's everywhere." He bit down hard on his lower lip and it started to bleed. Don grabbed a tissue from the counter and wiped the blood away gently as he thought over what he could do.

He knew his brother was in pain but didn't want to give him any pain relievers in case they reacted badly to whatever was currently in his system. That was the key of course. He had to figure out exactly what Bishop had injected him with and then he could work on neutralizing it.

With a sigh he turned toward his equipment and started analyzing the blood sample. "Hang in there Leo. I'll figure this out soon…"_ I hope…_

* * *

It was late, or early depending on how you looked at it. Either way, Don had been staring into his microscope for hours and his eyes were hurting. He'd been unable to isolate the substance that Bishop had used and had instead focused his efforts on studying its effects, hoping to find an answer that way. Unfortunately, he wasn't having much luck. The most he could see was an increase in the speed of cell movement, almost as though they were high on adrenaline. But why?

Rubbing his eyes, he turned away from his work to gaze upon the object of his tribulations. Leo had lost consciousness about two hours into all this, effectively sending the entire family into a panic. Don had quickly determined that all his life signs were stable and figured he'd probably just passed out from the pain. It was probably a good thing that he was unconscious now. During his last half hour awake, the pain had intensified so much that he could no longer hold back the low whines that escaped his throat. Don could only hope that in his unconsciousness he was no longer aware of the agony he must still be going through.

Don looked up at the only other occupant of the room. Michelangelo and Master Splinter had retired to their rooms several hours ago but Raph had chosen to stay at Leo's side and was currently dozing in a chair by his bed. Smiling slightly, Don turned back to his microscope. It seemed ironic that Raph would be the one to look after their eldest brother, considering how often the two were at each other's throats.

He was snapped out of his thoughts abruptly as he switched the scope to a higher magnification and saw something he had definitely not seen before. Not ever… in fact, he highly doubted that any scientist in the world had ever seen anything like this.

"What the shell…?"

He must have spoken louder then he intended, because a few moments later he heard Raph stir behind him.

"Donny?" the red-masked turtle asked with a yawn as he stood and made his way over to where his brother was staring into his microscope, looking absolutely shocked. "What is it?"

Don shook his head slowly and double checked the slide, sure he must be mistaken. He wasn't. "It's… it's impossible."

"What is?"

"I… well, just look." He moved aside and gestured for his brother to look into the microscope.

Raphael leaned down and stared for a moment before looking back at Don, one eyebrow raised. "So, um… what exactly am I supposed to be looking at?"

"The cells."

Raph looked back through the lenses. "Ya mean those little round things?"

"Yes."

"Okay…" He paused for a moment, and then asked. "What about 'em?"

"Well, just look at what they're doing." Don replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Raph looked. "They're… moving around?"

"No! Well yes, they are moving, but that's not what I mean. Look at how cells are interacting with each other."

Raph frowned and looked again. It took him a moment to figure out what his brother was talking about. Then he saw it. Two of the smaller cells seemed to stick together and then, like two drops of water meeting, they joined together to become one. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he saw several more doing the same thing.

"They're sort of… mushing together."

"Exactly!" Don pushed his brother out of the way and resumed his place at the microscope, frantically taking notes in illegible chicken scratch as stared intently into the lens.

Raph watched him for a moment, then said, "I take, they aren't supposed to do that?"

Don gave him a look as though he were crazy. "No! It's the exact opposite of what they're supposed to do. It's like… like reverse mitosis! Which should be completely impossible and yet here it is right in front of me. I can't explain it."

"Mitosis… ain't that like when cells clone themselves or something?" Raph asked, vaguely recalling a science program Don had been watching several weeks ago. He hadn't really watched it but a few parts had caught his attention.

Don shook his head and continued to jot down notes as he answered. The fact that he talk and write something completely different at the same time baffled Raph. "Sort of, but not really. Mitosis is the division of the mother cell into two daughter cells, genetically identical to each other and to their parent cell."

"Meaning…?"

"It's the process through which our bodies can grow-" He stopped and looked up slowly, a look of revelation on his face. "Growing pains…" An instant later he was digging through a drawer and pulling out a long measuring tape. "Stand up."

"What?" Raph asked, now thoroughly confused.

"Stand up straight. I need to measure you."

Raphael did so but gave Don a strange look. "What are you doing?"

Donatello finished and moved to the bed. After ensuring that Leo was lying straight, he proceeded to measure him as well. "I have a theory, but I'm seriously hoping that I'm wrong." A few more minutes passed in which Don re-measured both of them before sighing and slouching on his chair looking defeated.

"Donny? What's wrong?"

After another sigh, Don looked up at him. "Leo's an inch and a half shorter then you."

Raph considered this, thinking that they'd all always been about the same height. But then, he'd never really paid much attention to how tall each of them was. "What's your point?"

"For as long as I've been taking our measurements, you and Leo have always been within an eighth of an inch of each other."

Raph frowned. "So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying… that Leo's shrinking."

* * *

"So… it's like a _Honey, I Shrunk the Kids_ thing, right?" Mikey asked. Donatello had just finished explaining the situation to him and Master Splinter.

"Well, no." Don shook his head. "With _Honey, I Shrunk the Kids_, they just… shrink. This is more like he's aging backwards. Instead of growing older, he's growing younger."

Raph leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his plastron. "But you can fix it, right?"

"I… I don't know." Don replied, running a hand over his head in frustration. "I can't even figure out what's causing it, let alone how to stop it. It's completely hopeless." A gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder and he turned to look at his sensei.

"My son, you must not give up hope. I know that you will make every possible effort to bring Leonardo back to us. Beyond that, all we can do is hope and pray. I am confident that, in time, we will find a solution."

"But that's just it, Master Splinter. We don't have much time."

"What do you mean, Donny?" Michelangelo asked, looking worried.

"It's happening to quickly. Mitosis, regular mitosis, is very slow. But this… reverse mitosis is occurring at an exponentially faster speed, which explains why he's been in so much pain. Our bodies aren't supposed to work this way. By my calculations, at this rate, he'll lose a bit more then two years every day. That gives us a little more then a week before…"

Raph frowned hard when his brother stopped. He wasn't sure he wanted to know where that 'before' was leading, but at the same time, he had to ask. "Before what?"

Donatello looked down and spoke the next part quietly. "He'll get younger and younger everyday. When he gets too young… we might be able to put him in an incubator or something and that might help for a couple of hours but it'll get to the point where he won't be able to survive outside a womb... egg, whatever… He, he'll die."

Those last words hung in the room as all eyes turned toward the turtle on the bed. Already, he was showing subtle signs of being younger then his fifteen years; little things that only someone who'd known him for a long time would notice.

Finally, Master Splinter broke the silence. "Michelangelo, why don't you go make breakfast? We will all need our energy if we are to accomplish the task that has been set before us." Mikey nodded and bounded out of the room, glad to have something to do so that he wouldn't feel useless.

"Raphael." the rat turned toward his second eldest son. "I wish to speak with you privately. Please meet me in my room." Raph was confused by this but; all the same, he nodded and left the lab.

Splinter then turned to Donatello who was still gazing intently at his older brother. "Donatello. Do not fret, my son. It is too soon to be giving in to grief over what may be. The future is yet unknown. There is much that may be discovered in seven days."


	2. Chapter 2

**Growing Pains**

_So much can change in an instant. And with change comes pain, fear, helplessness, hope, strength, joy… a second chance. Through these we learn to grow._

* * *

**AN. **I should point out that I originally intended for Growing Pains to be a one-shot. However, while I was writing I realized that it was getting to be too long and so I decided to split it into two parts. Well, now it looks like it's going to be three but no more then that… I hope. This story seems to have a mind of its own. Expect several questions to be left unanswered in the third chapter. They will be answered in the sequel. Many thanks go out to LazyPanther for your review.

On another note, I realize that there are probably quite a few scientific inaccuracies in this story. For one thing, reverse mitosis is impossible though for the purpose of this story I've made it possible. Also, the procedures that Don is using to find the cure are likely not correct at all, but since I don't feeling like doing a ton of research for this story, I'm simply going to ask that you suspend your disbelief in all these areas and just go with the flow. Thank you.

**Disclaimer:** The Turtles and all their friends are the property of Mirage Studios. I do not own them, but am grateful for the opportunity to use them in the unleashing of my own imagination.

**Rating:** This story is rated K+.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"He's so… little."

There was no verbal response to Michelangelo's statement, however it did cause Donatello to look up from his work and turn his gaze toward the bed where their eldest brother still lay unconscious. He was indeed little. In the past five days he'd lost over two feet in height. Don estimated that his body was now the size of a five or six year old. Leo's features had softened greatly and he now had a boyish look about him. It was hard to believe that this… child was their older brother. His mask and gear had long since been removed and it left him looking even smaller and more vulnerable then before.

"Any luck?" Raph asked gruffly from where he and Mikey were sitting on the other side of the bed. It was about the only thing Raphael had said in the last few days. The red-masked turtle had been oddly quiet since his meeting with Master Splinter. The topic of their conversation was unknown to the rest of the household and Don and Mike could only speculate on what had been discussed there.

Don sighed and shook his head in answer. No, he hadn't had any luck at all. Hour after hour had been spent mixing together various compounds, testing them on tissue samples, and watching to see what happened. So far the results had ranged between having no effect at all and killing the sample. There was nothing helpful and Don was running out of ideas. Not only that, but he was exhausted. April stopped by for a bit each day to take over for him so he could get some rest, but what little sleep he managed to get was fitful and cluttered with strange dreams, leaving him even more tired then before.

He knew his brothers were having just as much trouble sleeping. In fact Don got the feeling that they were worse off as they could do nothing but sit back and wait. They tried to help in what ways they could, but there was little they could do. Two days ago, Raph and Mike had banded together and run off on a search of the city, intending to find Bishop and force him to tell them the cure. They'd come back the next day, empty handed. Bishop had seemingly vanished from the city.

Helpless.

They were all feeling it to some extent. At least Don had a definitive job to do, even if it didn't seem to be getting them anywhere. He could only hope that he'd stumble upon the right chemicals to do the trick.

Speaking of which…

He looked at the row of test tubes each containing a small blood sample mixed with one of three carefully labeled compounds that he was currently testing. He picked one at random and glanced at the number, jotting it down on his note pad. _Alright, compound 49: series 6, make my day. _

Transferring a small amount of the mixture onto a slide and placing it on the stage of the microscope, he took a deep breath before peering into the lens for what felt like the thousandth time.

_No effect._

He recorded his findings and removed the slide. As he stared at it, a wave of frustration passed over him and he had to resist the urge to crush the flimsy piece of glass in his hand. It would've felt good; the tiny shards sticking into his palm, his own blood flowing freely, the pain… nothing compared to what his brother had been feeling.

"You alright Donny?"

Don put the slide down. No, hurting himself would do no good. It would only delay his tests and there wasn't enough time to let any be wasted. "I'm fine Mikey." He picked up the next tube. _Compound 49: series 7._ He transferred some to the slide and placed it on the stage.

_Why am I bothering? I know what the results will be. It's no use. Nothing I do will make a difference. Leo's going to die completely helpless and it's all my fault. I'm just not smart enough. This shouldn't even be possible. How am I supposed to figure out how to stop what should be impossible? I'm running out of time. There isn't enough-_

Lost in his thoughts, Don hadn't noticed that the speed of cell movement was slower then it had been in other samples, a lot slower. Nor did he notice that none of the cells were "mushing together" as Raph had put it. What did catch his attention, however, was one of the cells pulling apart; splitting to form two identical cells.

He increased the magnification. There was another one, working its way into telophase. His eyes lit up as he allowed himself to hope that this was for real. A third cell seemed to be in the midst of metaphase. "Yes… YES!" This was what he loved about science; the way things seemed to just fall into place and work the way they were intended to. He found it to be so amazing and awe inspiring.

"Don, what is it? What'd you find?" Raph asked. He and Mikey had immediately come to his side when he shouted.

"Is it the cure?" Mikey added.

Don turned to beam at his brothers and also saw Master Splinter and April standing behind them, having obviously heard the commotion as well. "Ladies and gentlemen … we have mitosis!"

A cheer when up around the room and the tension of the past few days seemed to wash away. Afterwards, there were a few moments during which no one knew what to say. It was all so much, everything they'd been through, the stress and frustration. And now it was over, well almost.

"So what are you waiting for Donny?" Raph broke the silence. "Let's get our brother back."

* * *

Don pulled the needle out of Leo's arm and gently whipped the spot with a tissue. "Well, that's that. Now we just have to wait." He looked around at his brothers and father. April had gone home a short while ago; promising to return later on once Leo was up and about.

"He's gonna start getting big again, right?" Mike asked, staring intently at Leo's child size hands.

Don considered the question for a moment. He knew the answer and had been expecting in to come up, but he wasn't quite sure how to explain it. No matter what, it would strike a blow to their joy in finally finding a cure. "Well, yes and no. He will start to grow again, but it'll be in a normal growth pattern."

"Huh?"

Don sighed. "In other words, he's going to have to grow up all over again."

Raph frowned at these words though he didn't look too surprised. In fact, he and Master Splinter seemed to have expected this. Mikey, on the other hand, looked shocked. "Wait, you mean he's stuck like this? Can't you just like, speed it up or something, the way Bishop's stuff was doing backwards?"

Donny shook his head. "Even if I could, Mikey, I wouldn't. You saw how much pain he was in. Our bodies aren't designed to do anything that quickly. To force him to go through that again would be awful. It could even kill him."

Mikey let the words sink in as he returned to examining Leo's hand. He lifted it up and pressed the palm against his own, comparing the size. Leo's hand was less then half the size of Mikey's. "This is gonna be weird. Leo's always been our big brother…"

"Well, technically we're all about the same age." Donny replied.

Mike just shrugged. "I don't care. He's always been the big brother to me. And now he's so… small."

"We will all have to adjust to these changes." Master Splinter said in a soothing voice.

"Yeah… especially Leo. He's gonna be really freaked out when he wakes up."

"Then we will all have to be there for him. Come, it will be some time before he wakes up. We should all get some sleep as well."

Splinter led the orange-masked turtle out of the lab, knowing that the other two would follow at their own pace.

Raph hung back, watching as Donatello cleaned his equipment and carefully filed his notes. A question burned in the back of his mind, but once again he was afraid to ask… afraid of the answer.

"Hey Don?"

"Yeah?" Donny looked up from the test tube he was cleaning.

"He's still gonna be Leo, right?"

The purple-masked turtle looked confused. "What do you mean? Of course he'll still be Leo."

"I mean, will he still act like himself, remember who he is and all that?"

"Oh… hmm…" Don thought about it for a moment. "Well… it's hard to say. I shouldn't think his memory would be affected as that has more to do with nerve impulses then the actual cells, but then we can't really be sure until he wakes up. As for how he'll act… I don't know Raph. We'll just have to wait and see."

Raph nodded and just continued to watch in silence as Donny finished up.

"Well," Don said, after washing his hands, "I'm all done here. But I'd rather not have him be alone when he wakes up…"

"Go to bed Donny. I'll stay with him."

"Thanks Raph." Donny replied with a yawn before leaving the lab to make his way to his bedroom where he'd hopefully have the first real sleep he'd had in days.

* * *

The last thing Leo remembered was pain, a lot of pain. But that was gone now. He wasn't hurting anymore but he did feel… different, only he couldn't figure out why. Everything seemed to be wrong somehow, but not wrong at the same time. Even his thoughts were strange, more jumbled then he was used to, sort of … disorganized. But he remembered… he remembered he'd been captured by Agent Bishop and injected with something; that's what had caused the pain. But he hadn't felt it right away. He'd been rescued by his brothers first. Then at home, that's when the pain started. Donny said he'd fix it. He didn't remember much more after that… just pain and then nothing.

_Am I dead?_ The thought scared him… a lot more then he thought it would. He opened his eyes quickly and took deep breaths to calm his heart which was beating wildly in his chest. _I'm breathing…my heart's beating. I feel it. I'm alive._ He looked around the dimly lit room. _Donny's lab. _Someone else was breathing in the room. He turned to see one of his brothers dozing in a chair beside the bed. _Raphie…_

"Raph…?" His voice sounded different and he coughed softly supposing his throat was just raw from not talking in awhile.

Raphael stirred and lifted his head with a yawn. "Wha…oh, hey. You're awake."

Leo nodded. "How long was I asleep?"

"Five… well, I guess it's been about six days now." Raph replied after thinking for a moment.

"Six days… did Donny fix what was wrong with me?" Leo swallowed hard. His voice still sounded really weird.

Raph didn't answer right away, his eyes staring at something on the floor. "Yeah," he said finally. "Pretty much."

Leo frowned. His brother was hiding something. "Pretty much? What do you mean?" Raph didn't answer; he just continued to look at the floor. "Raph…" Leo sat up a little and reached out a hand to touch his brother's shoulder. "Tell me. What's-" He gasped and pulled his hand back.

For a moment, all he could do was stare. It wasn't his hand… at least, not the hand he remembered having six days ago. He turned it over to look at the palm… so small. He lifted his other hand; it was the same – small, like a child's hand. Suddenly, he realized why everything felt different and he threw back the comforter that hid the lower half of his body. Thin, green legs and tiny, two-toed feet stood out against the stark white of the sheets.

Leo tried to calm the fear that was creeping into his head, but as he reach up to feel his now too small face he found that being calm was impossible. He began breathing heavily as he looked back at Raphael; anxiously searching for answers that his brother didn't seem to want to give.

"Raph… Raphie, what happened to me?" Leo didn't know why he'd reverted to using the childhood nickname but it seemed appropriate at this time. He was scared and even as part of his mind told him to calm down and think this through logically, the rest was crying out in confusion. The thoughts of a frightened child drowned out years of mental training and panic started to set in.

The red-masked turtle did look back at him now but his eyes held an expression like he was staring at something strange and entirely unfamiliar. He stood quickly and back out the door, leaving the turtle-child alone in the lab.

Leonardo stared after his brother, even more confused now then before. "Raph? Raph come back." He pleaded in a small voice he still wasn't used to hearing. "Raphie, don't leave! Come back! Please come back!" He was shouting now. Nothing made sense. A thousand emotions seemed to coarse through his head and he couldn't control any one of them. Tears began streaming down his face uncontrollably.

"Leo?" Donatello appeared in the doorway, closely followed by Michelangelo. They saw his distress and immediately came to his side but seemed at a loss as to how to deal with this.

"Donny, Mikey, what's happened to me? Why am I like this?"

Don hesitated, afraid of making the situation worse. "Well… Leo, I…" He stopped and looked to Mike for assistance. The orange-masked turtle only shrugged.

Leo looked between them frantically. "Someone answer me! Please!"

"Leonardo." All three turtles looked up as their sensei entered the room. Mike and Don stepped away from the bed, making room for the rat to sit beside the small turtle on the bed. "I am glad you have returned to us. We were very worried about you."

Hoping that he would now get the answers he was looking for, Leo sniffled and looked up into his teacher's soft eyes. It was a strange perspective considering that they had all surpassed their sensei in height several years ago. "But Master Splinter, I'm not me. I…" He dashed a hand across his eyes as more tears threatened to spill. "What's wrong with me?"

Suddenly, Leonardo found himself drawn into his father's arms. This also seemed strange; but at the same time it was comforting and, with his world suddenly flipped upside-down, Leonardo felt the need to latch onto what was familiar and constant. He buried his face into the coarse fabric of Splinter's robe and listened to the soothing sound of his heartbeat.

"My son, there is nothing wrong with you. These changes are the result of the substance that Agent Bishop injected you with. Your brother, Donatello, managed to stop its effects however he is not able to reverse them."

The small turtle nodded at the explanation. He knew there were more details to it then that but at the moment he was too stressed out to sit through one of Donny's science talks about how such and such works. Still, the last part worried him. Lifting his head, Leo met the eyes of his purple-masked brother. "Are you sure? Could you at least try?"

Don looked at the floor. "I'm sorry Leo. Even if I did try, the process… it could kill you. That's not a risk I want to take."

This was just too much to take in. "It's not fair!" Leo cried, once more resting his head against his father's chest. "I don't want to be like this. I want to be me." He began crying again and Splinter pulled him close.

The old rat didn't seem to care that his robe was getting soaked with tears. He simply rocked the small turtle back and forth, rubbing his shell gently.

At some point, Mike and Don must have gone back to bed because when Leo looked up again he found himself alone with his sensei. He wiped at his eyes but it didn't accomplish much. "Why can't I stop crying?"

"There is no shame in your tears, my son. They are to be expected after events such as these."

Leo could understand that. Anyone would be upset after finding out they'd been turned into a kid. But he wasn't just anyone. He'd had years of mental and physical training. He'd learned to balance both mind and body. Only now he felt like he had no balance at all. "But I'm a ninja. My training-"

"Leonardo." Splinter cut him off gently. "No training could have prepared you for these changes. You will have to make many adjustments in your life in the days to come. We all will. And it will not be easy. But I am confident that all will turn out well in the end."

Leo yawn, suddenly feeling very tired. "But how can it? Everything's gonna be different now. I don't even understand what's happened and it's all so confusing."

"Things will become clearer in the morning. Right now your body is still healing and you need your rest." Leo seemed ready to protest but another yawn cut him off. He nodded and lay back on the bed. He was still so confused. It almost seemed like a bad dream; if only he could wake up and have everything be normal again.

He was about to close his eyes when he remembered something and looked back at his father, frowning. "Raph ran away from me…" It wasn't really a question but Splinter seemed to understand.

"Raphael will also need time to adjust to these changes. Do not worry. I will speak with him."

Leo nodded and closed his eyes. As he began drifting off he heard his father softly singing an old Japanese lullaby he had often sung when they were younger. He hadn't heard it in a long time but the gentle words had the same effect, carrying the young turtle off into a world of sailing ships through starry skies where fears passed away into silver nights.

By the time Splinter finished the song, his son was asleep and he smiled gently as he laid a hand on the tiny turtle's brow. He recalled the feeling of holding his son in his arms once again and realized how much he had missed it since his sons had grown too old to seek comfort in their father's embrace. Yet his joy at having the chance to do so again was greatly diminished by all that it meant for his eldest son who had now suddenly become the youngest. Yes, many changes were in store for their family; that much was clear. But how they would face these changes was still a mystery.


End file.
